Can habitat modification in the native range promote invasion?

The anthropogenically induced adaptation to invade (AIAI) hypothesis posits that selection in human-modified habitats within native ranges can adapt populations to invade similarly altered environments elsewhere. Although widely invoked, empirical tests of this hypothesis remain limited because disentangling native-range adaptation from post-introduction evolution is challenging. Here, we clarify how anthropogenic disturbance creates repeatable selective regimes and demonstrate how targeted sampling, population genomics, and genotype-environment associations can disentangle native-range adaptation from post-introduction evolution. Incorporating genomic offset, genetic architecture, nongenetic changes, experiments, and temporal data further strengthens inference. These insights and approaches establish the AIAI hypothesis as a mechanism that explicitly links human disturbance with the evolutionary dynamics of invasive species, providing novel insights into the prediction and management of biological invasions.